To my right, there’s a click, and the area brightens as the rest of the world falls dark. The lantern Noah and I purchased back in April for this trip flickers before remaining lit. Sitting next to it, Noah’s sexy as heck as he watches me from beyond the hair that hides his eyes.

“Hi,” I say, like I’m a shy child caught peeking around the corner.

“Hey,” he replies.

“How long have you been there?”

“Awhile.”

I tuck my hair behind my ear and busy myself with slipping the oil pastels back into their allotted slots of the container. “You could have told me that you were done with the campsite.”

“Could’ve,” he says. “But then I wouldn’t have been able to watch you.”

My cheeks burn and when I don’t respond, Noah inches close enough to caress my cheek. “I love it when you do that.”

“What?” I ask a little breathlessly. His fingers brush against my skin, causing goose bumps on my arms.

“Look at me like the first time you told me you loved me.”

The heat rising off my face intensifies. Noah cups my jaw and skims his thumb against my skin one more time. I swallow, thinking of his lips touching mine.

“Are you hungry?” he asks.

My stomach growls as if it recognized the question, and Noah’s mouth tilts into this slow, seductive smile. Those mutant pterodactyls that Noah spawned when we began the game of flirting months ago spread their wings and fly. This is what I miss about us—the simplicity in the chaos.

Noah stands and offers me his hand. I gather my sketchbook and pastels and when my hand is firmly in his, he lifts the lantern and leads me from the field to the campground.

We hold hands on the dirt path, our fingers entwined. The long grass lazily grazes along my thighs. Noah doesn’t hold hands often. In fact, it was one of the few rules I understood, and it’s not lost on me how special this moment is. It’s like the roses. Noah’s showing me his love.

Because of that, I concentrate on the rough sensation of his skin against mine. The heat between our palms. How his larger and stronger fingers grasping mine make me feel smaller, extremely feminine and protected.

Near the entrance of the campsite are two camper trailers, and on the far left, closer to the bathroom facilities, are a few more tents. Noah set us up as far from everyone as humanly possible, designing our own little world.

With one firm squeeze, Noah releases my fingers and leaves me and the lantern at a blanket he laid out next to the tent. He quickly goes to work lighting the campfire. Without a doubt, the fire has been my favorite part of camping. I love the fluttering light, the scent of the smoke, the way I lose myself while admiring the flames.

At the start of our trip, I asked Noah if the campfires bothered him, and he told me no. He said they reminded him of all the times his parents took him camping. Still, a part of me wonders what he really sees when he looks into the fire.

“There’s some food in the cooler,” Noah says. “Hope you don’t mind, but I already ate.”

“Not at all.” Noah’s familiar with my odd artistic moods and learned he could be waiting for hours until I officially wake to reality. I root through the cooler and smile when I find a ham and cheese deli sandwich on wheat drenched with honey mustard. “You’re spoiling me.”

“Damn, baby, I’ve got to step up my game if ham’s a spoil.”

I tear off a corner of the sandwich. “It’s the thought, not the ham.”

Noah clicks the lighter, and flint sparks against metal. He places the glowing flame near the wood. He doesn’t say anything, but I spot the satisfied glint in his eye.

Inside the tent, Noah has created a cozy layer of blankets and pillows—illustrating how he’s polished the fine art of presentation. I turn to tease him, but Noah quickly averts his focus to the kindling. I could grow accustomed to being wooed by the great Noah Hutchins.

With the fire crackling toward a slow roar, Noah slides next to me, and I pop the last bite of my favorite fast dinner into my mouth, licking the last drops of honey mustard off my fingers. Right as I go to lick my ring finger, Noah snags my wrist, and my breath catches in my throat.

Noah opens his mouth and draws my finger in, his tongue moving against my skin in a way that causes a warm tingle in my belly. It’s a pressure and a pull and a sensation I crave to melt into. His eyes lock with mine, and it’s like I’m hypnotized—powerless over him, but I love being here...I love being under his spell.

Noah lets my finger go and when he does, I can barely breathe. He reaches over and brushes his thumb near the corner of my mouth. “You have some sauce...” Another brush. “Right there.”

My mouth slightly drops open, and Noah keeps his hand at my face. All thought starts and stops and races. I should kiss Noah’s hand like he did mine, but I freeze, wondering if that’s what he wants or if he’d laugh if I did.

His hand glides down my face, lingers on my neck then moves on to my shoulder. I’m split between being disappointed in avoiding what could have been a moment, and enjoying Noah’s touch.

“Come here,” he says, and he leans back against the cooler and leads me so that I’m resting between his legs. I settle in and lay my back against his chest as he wraps his arms around me. I inhale his dark scent, and I have the overwhelming feeling of coming home.

Noah

Echo releases a slow breath and for the first time since I’ve known her, she sets her gaze on the stars. There’s a million of them in the sky. Each stop across the country has been a perfect spot to observe them, but Echo always chose to stare straight ahead at the flames. Because of that, warm, cold or boiling hot, I’ve created a fire.

As she peers at the sight she avoids, I comb my fingers through her curls. “What do you see when you look up?”

Echo adds another protective layer around herself by tucking her hands under my arms. “Aires.”

I focus on the stars. Bright and dim lights dot a black sky. It’s disorganized chaos to me, but Echo recognizes patterns and pictures in the confusion. I wish I could view the world through her eyes. I might be less jaded then. “Where’s his constellation at?”

“It’s a December constellation for the northern hemisphere.”

“Then why Aires?” This is a tricky conversation with Echo. The stars above, they’re a deep root in her life—like how Spanish is a bond between me and my mother and architecture is between me and my dad. There are times that I talk to my friends Rico and Antonio in their first language, and a knife slashes through my gut and, as I prepare to study architecture this fall, I sometimes feel as if someone has punched me in the throat.